Too Big to Fail
by Sarah1281
Summary: Somehow Donna had expected they would have all gotten caught by now. Instead, Mike's freaking out because he's being appointed to positions by the president and really, is anyone even surprised at this point? Futurefic


Sometimes Donna wondered if this was like being in a Ponzi scheme or something. They were getting, or perhaps had already gotten, too big to fail.

Sometimes she wondered how this story was supposed to have ended. It wasn't over yet, of course. As long as Mike was allowed to continue to play out the fiction that he went to Harvard then it would never _truly_ be over. He could be dead and buried for fifty years and the story still wouldn't end until some historian dug through the archives and realized that his house of cards was built on such shaky foundation. Non-existent, foundation, actually which was worse than shaky.

This was never a story that was meant to have a happy ending. Of course not. How could it? A small-time drug dealer and college drop-out pretending to go to Harvard and dazzling everyone with his brilliance? Well, the dazzling part was never a problem but time and time again people had been on the verge of discovering the secret or had actually figured it out and yet…somehow, none of it had been ripped away.

How was it supposed to have ended? It was all well and good when Mike was just a brand-new associate and didn't even know how to file a patent. Granted that was a little bit suspicious since he was supposed to have learned all of these things in class but it was pretty doable then. Nobody really cared to know anything about him and of course they all assumed he'd gone to Harvard. She and Harvey hadn't really thought about the future, hadn't thought Mike would make it that long.

But he did. And then Jessica knew and Rachel knew and freaking Louis knew and somehow Mike's secret was kept.

She had considered the possibility that they'd all end up in jail (with Harvey trying valiantly to protect her and Mike trying valiantly to protect him and no one letting anyone fall on their swords for them) but not at first. At first it hadn't seemed like a big deal. At first it was just Harvey's complete inability to deal with one more Harvard clone and a minor deception. A crime, probably a felony, but it seemed so harmless. And by the time it looked like it might become a problem Mike was one of them.

Still, if she had had to put an expiration date on their little lie then she would most certainly have picked sometime less than seventeen years.

"I don't know what to do, Donna," Mike said, his head in his hands.

Of course he didn't. And of course he had flown all the way from Washington to come ask her advice in person.

"It seems pretty simple. You either take the job or you don't," she said.

"It's not _nearly_ that simple," Mike protested because Mike had a bit of a habit of panicking and thinking the worst of everything. It was really a wonder he'd made it as far in life as he had without her. Then again, given the state she'd found him in perhaps it wasn't. "Pete wants me to be the Attorney General! I can't be the Attorney General!"

"Then tell him no."

"I can't do that! He knows how much I want the job and it would be too suspicious," Mike said.

Donna was pretty sure that they could work out a reasonable excuse for not taking the job but Mike, despite the fact his entire life was based on lies, was not always the best at lying. Remarkable, really, he hadn't been caught yet. Or not caught to such an extent that it mattered. They were too good for him, truly.

"Clearly Pete thinks you're up for the challenge," she said.

"I know and I am!" Mike exclaimed, looking wistful. "But Donna, I _can't_."

"Why not?" Donna asked, despite knowing perfectly well what he was getting hung up on.

"Donna," Mike said, looking away frantically despite the fact that literally every single person in the building knew Mike's secret by now. "I didn't go to Harvard!"

"You hadn't gone to Harvard when you got your job here or when you became a junior partner then a senior partner or when you helped Pete with the campaign or became his literal campaign manager," Donna pointed out. "And very few people, relatively, found out your secret then."

"But this is different!" Mike protested. "There will have to be confirmation hearings and everything. People will be digging into my past trying to make sure I'm qualified and don't have any scandals, such as being a complete fraud, that could disgrace my office. They're going to find out the truth!"

"I think you're being just a little bit paranoid," Donna told him.

Mike stared at her. "Donna, I didn't go to Harvard."

"I am well aware of that."

"I may have passed the bar but New York law prohibits you from even taking it without a law degree," Mike said. "So there was some fraud there, too. All those lawyers who know me because I took the LSAT for them know that there's no way I went to Harvard."

"Mike, we tracked down each and every person that you ever took the test for and got them to sign an affidavit that they are complicit in your fraud and only got into law school because of you in the first place in case any of them ever want to come forward," Donna patiently reminded him. "And don't worry about that bar exam technicality!"

"It's not so much a technicality as it is the law," Mike said.

"And I find it so adorable that you're the one of us to actually care about that," Donna said. "If you want the job then take the job. We'll make it work."

"Donna, you can't just bribe or force to implicate themselves every member of the Senate!"

"Not _every_ ," Donna agreed. "And I will if I have to."

"I'm pretty sure that that's not only impossible but begging to get us all arrested," Mike said seriously.

"That has been my world for nearly two decades," Donna said, shrugging. "But it wouldn't even come to that."

"How could it not?" Mike asked. "It's these people's jobs to vet me and that's not even considering the tendency of the opposition to try and tear down the people appointed. And you know Trevor's still out there."

"Trevor is not the boogeyman, Mike," Donna said. "And really, we have everything under control."

Mike raised his head and blinked miserably at her. "I was never supposed to raise this far. Jessica made it very clear that I could never attract any attention because it could lead to people finding out my secret."

Donna nodded, her eyes comically wide. "Oh, yes, I remember how below the radar you were flying when you made the papers for having the most pro-bono cases in the state of New York. Or when you were lead chair on several high-profile cases. Helping Pete get elected? I Google 'Ross' and I get you before I get that guy from Friends and I disabled that 'remember what you search' function."

Mike groaned. "I know. I suck."

"Well you certainly don't know the meaning of inconspicuous," Donna agreed.

"What am I going to do?" Mike asked. "It's too late to just put the genie in the bottle. I can't go off and have nobody know who I am anymore. But people will find out my secret! I just know they will. I…honestly don't know how we've managed to keep it all this time."

"Mike, every employee in this building knows your secret," Donna said matter-of-factly. "Everyone who has retired from Pearson, Specter, Litt, Ross, & Zane knows your secret. Finding out your secret and not being allowed to leave until you sign an affidavit saying you were aware of the secret is a standard part of new hire orientation by now."

"That's different," Mike said.

"It _always_ is," Donna said sighing. "Mike, literally every single lawyer you have ever gone up against in court or even met in a professional activity has implicated themselves if you're ever exposed."

"And that's great, Donna, but they won't be the ones asking."

"We replaced every single Harvard yearbook from the years you were supposedly there with edited copies that contain your picture," Donna said. "What's-her-face, that associate Louis wanted to hire way back then, the one who said she knew you weren't in her class? Well she didn't know it after we arranged for her to take part in a false memory experiment she may or may not have actually known about. Every member of the Harvard faculty that was active the years you went to Harvard all have at least a half a dozen unique and fun stories about you. A full third of the people in your graduating class swear that they knew you from Harvard. We even found people we bribed to be your grad school friends. You have a Harvard file. There is nothing to find."

"I don't actually know how you managed all of that," Mike said. "It sounds a little extreme."

"Sure, looking at it _now_ it sounds extreme," Donna said. "But over the last seventeen years you had better believe each and every one of the things we did were an urgent matter of keeping your secret. I regret nothing and no one is going to be able to figure out you didn't go to Harvard from looking at the evidence at Harvard. And nobody is even going to think to check if you went to Harvard because they'll all assume that if you hadn't you never would have gotten as far as you've gotten and you'd have gotten found out years ago."

"That seems a little careless of the Senate," Mike observed.

Donna rolled her eyes. "Mike, this is the United States Senate we're talking about here. They're all about due diligence, I'm sure, but they and their staff really have better things than deeply investigating whether you went to law school were you – and everyone you know – says that you did."

"I don't know, I still don't feel good about this," Mike said.

"Would you like us to bring in Pete?" Donna asked. "If he knew, would you feel better?"

Mike shot to his feet. "What? Donna, no, you can't! We can't bring _the President of the United States_ in on my secret! I don't even…he might be able to get impeached for that!"

"It's cute that you think it would ever come to that," Donna informed him. "I don't know what to tell you. You want the job. Whenever you want the job, whenever you have wanted anything badly enough over the last seventeen years, you take it. It's as simple as that. So just take it."

Mike looked down. "I know but…don't you think that's kind of selfish? Think of all the…probably thousands of people at this point who could be brought down because of me. I really shouldn't tempt fate."

"Too big to fail," Donna said, nodding.

Mike gave her a confused look. "What?"

"Mike, you do a lot of good. You somehow managed to fail at being an investment banker for being too good of a person and also a little too quixotical to be believed. All you want to do is help people even if you don't always get it right or insist on helping them the way you think they need to be helped instead of doing what they want or you end up not being able to see the forest for the trees."

Mike let out a startled laugh. "That's, uh, not exactly a ringing endorsement there, Donna."

"Hey, I have to deal with Harvey whenever you go running off on one of your noble quests."

"I don't call them noble quests!" Mike protested.

"Maybe not out loud," Donna replied. "Look, you made a lot of really terrible choices I know you still kick yourself for a long time ago and it's a little late to think about not pretending to have gone to Harvard and enjoy all the benefits of that and your brilliance and hard work. It's going to be fine. It always was fine. And, knowing you, you've already tried to turn Pete down and he _still_ wants you. So just do it. You're a long way from the guy who wouldn't stop asking Louis about that stupid key until he was forced to accept that you never went to Harvard. You know more about the Harvard experience than _Harvey_ at this point."

Mike smiled. "Thanks, Donna. I'm glad to know you have my back."

"So you're going to do it?" Donna asked rhetorically. He was always going to do it.

He nodded. "Yeah, I'm going to do it."

"Good. Now remember this. I really don't want to have to have this conversation again when they nominate you for the Supreme Court."

Mike choked. "The wh-Donna, they're not going to put me on the Supreme Court!"

"Not today," Donna agreed. "But I think we both know where you go from here."

"I _really_ can't be on the Supreme Court!"

Donna smiled politely and started making mental notes on how to make Mike's cover worthy of the highest court in the land.


End file.
